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6 October 2025
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Better post-retirement planning, the QE party, Australia with the PIIGS, innovate or stagnate, Happy Birthday $A float, and when super started.
Retirees should consider the best mix of capital preservation, income variability and income requirements, and then be shown how these can be traded against each other with varying degrees of probability.
Buying long-term bonds at yields below historical inflation rates is asking for trouble, despite the recent rises in bond rates. Even QE policymakers have their doubts.
Australian 10 year bond rates, once yielding 5% less than PIIGS countries Italy and Spain, are now trading at the same rates. Surely we are not squealing down at their level.
Too busy? We need to be motivated to take the time and space to look for a vision of the future, where we can drive growth in our businesses by stimulating demand. Or face the consequences of stagnation.
Let's celebrate the positive effects of a floating exchange rate and the way it adjusts to make economic policy more effective. With some exceptions, a floating currency acts as a shock absorber to cushion volatility.
There’s as good a record as any, from the father of modern superannuation. The start of national superannuation was 4 September 1985, not seven years later when the superannuation guarantee started.
This AI cycle feels less like a revolution and more like a rerun. Just like fibre in 2000, shale in 2014, and cannabis in 2019, the technology or product is real but the capital cycle will be brutal. Investors beware.
An explosion in low-skilled migration to Australia has depressed wages, killed productivity, and cut rental vacancy rates to near decades-lows. It’s time both sides of politics addressed the issue.
LICs are continuing to struggle with large discounts and frustrated investors are wondering whether it’s worth holding onto them. This explains why the next 6-12 months will be make or break for many LICs.
Australian housing’s 50-year boom was driven by falling rates and rising borrowing power — not rent or yield. With those drivers exhausted, future returns must reconcile with economic fundamentals. Are we ready?
Younger Australians think they’ll need $100k a year in retirement - nearly double what current retirees spend. Expectations are rising fast, but are they realistic or just another case of lifestyle inflation?
This week, I got the news that my mother has dementia. It came shortly after my father received the same diagnosis. This is a meditation on getting old and my regrets in not getting my parents’ affairs in order sooner.